


everything comes back, in turn

by rarmaster



Series: YWKON [3]
Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Gen, i can't tag anything because it's spoilers. even my jokes are spoilers. i'm dying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 21:55:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17252078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rarmaster/pseuds/rarmaster
Summary: They go to Meltokio to stop the war, and find some familiar faces, instead.sequel toYou Will Know Our Names





	everything comes back, in turn

**Author's Note:**

> a significantly larger amount of XC2 characters show up in this one, and since i'm actually horrid at doing detailed physical descriptions of characters, [here's a visual guide](http://rarmaster.tumblr.com/private/181601401245/tumblr_pkmwvoSWDr1roehl8)

They go to Meltokio.

( _Well, all of them except Yuan and Botta, who decide to take their honeymoon literally anywhere else._ )

( _Presea stays with the party, because she really has nowhere else to go, and in many ways, Kratos is the only family she has left._ )

At first, they worry—last they were near a major Tethe’allan city, they were wanted criminals, and it’s not like anyone knows _they_ were the ones that overhauled the blade system. But Lloyd is determined, and Kratos is determined, and if they’re going to talk to the rulers of the countries about the war, Meltokio is much closer to them than Sylvarant’s capital, so. They go to Meltokio, regardless of the danger, in spite of the danger.

They need not have worried at all.

It’s not like Meltokio welcomes them with open arms and a fanfare, but Meltokio, it seems, is too busy to notice them at all. There’s a lot of bustle, celebration in the streets, enough of it that the people of Meltokio don’t even notice that their Aegis has come home.

“Excuse me,” Raine asks a passerby, nosy. “What’s the celebration for?”

The man, looking a little bit drunk, sends her a grin and spreads his arms. “Didn’t ya hear? The war’s over! For good this time, they’re saying!”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Kratos mutters, but goes unheard.

“Oh,” Lloyd says, somewhat disappointed as the man goes back to the festivities. “So we… don’t have to do anything at all?”

“Hey, I wouldn’t be disappointed about that!” Zelos says, brightly. Despite his laugh, there’s a clear edge in his voice. He puts a hand on Lloyd’s shoulder, starts to steer him back the way they came. “So, I guess we should just get out of here, then—”

“Kratoooosss!” a voice calls, a voice that only Kratos recognizes, and only recognizes distantly, a voice played on loop in his memories but that he hasn’t actually heard since- _since…_

Zelos stops pushing Lloyd and turns with everyone else to the source of the voice. Kratos spins around too, disbelief making his ether churn in his veins. Disbelief turns to cold shock when he sees the man who called him; a well-built, muscular man that’s easily taller than the rest of them, his hair black and short, half of a purple core crystal set in his collarbone. He looks somehow delighted and pissed off at the same time.

“M- Malos?” Kratos asks, nearly choking on the blade’s name.

“Hey!! Long time no see!” Malos calls, with genuine fondness, so maybe his face just is built to look like he’s lowkey always mad about something. He stops a few paces from the group, puts a hand on his hip, and grins, head cocked to the side. “Now, I know you’ve got questions—”

“You remember me?” Kratos asks, taking one staggering step forward and squinting at a man he thought long dead.

“Oh, come _on,_ how could I possibly forget the man who fucked my daughter!” is how Malos replies. He reaches up to tap his core crystal—only half of it sits in his collarbone—and honestly, the gesture and the core crystal half _mean_ something, but Kratos is caught on Malos’ words and his complete lack of volume, and Kratos’ face burns red with both blood and the color of his ether.

( _He. Cannot. Believe. This is happening._ )

“Daughter?” Genis asks, dubious, as Lloyd squeaks incoherently and Kratos buries his face in his hands.

“Listen, sometimes a ten-year-old girl picks up your core crystal and resonates with you, and sometimes you just end up adopting her, ask Jin, he’s an expert,” Malos says, which is as confusing as it is a valid explanation. “Anyway, hey! Is that _Lloyd_! The hell—you got so _big!!_ ” And then Malos takes two steps forward, which is plenty to put him close enough that he can peer down at Lloyd, looking him over, taking him in. “Last thing I remember of you is a fussy little toddler who _looooved_ climbing on my shoulders.” He clicks his tongue, disappointed. “Too big for that now, I think.”

“I… yeah, haha,” Lloyd agrees. He laughs nervously as he leans back a little, squinting at this very enthusiastic blade who seems downright _delighted_ to see him. “Sorry, can we back up a bit? Who are you?”

Malos deflates and backs up, rolling his neck in what might be an exaggeration of his disappointment, though maybe he’s just Like That. “Oh come _on,_ kid, you don’t remember your own grandpa? Call me _disappointed_.”

“Grandpa?” Lloyd squeaks, as behind him, Seles snorts into her hand.

“Did you _miss_ the part where I just said your mom’s my daughter,” Malos says.

Lloyd fumbles to answer, but doesn’t get the chance, because Kratos has finally managed to wade through both his embarrassment and his disbelief to pin down some words.

“How the hell are you alive,” Kratos demands, the words getting caught on the bubbles of disbelief in his throat. He takes a shaky step forward, not tearing his eyes away from Malos, like he fears the man will disappear if he does. “I saw your _graves_.”

“And?” is Malos’ reply, like that makes perfect sense to him.

“Were you not in the town when it got hit?” Kratos presses, trying to rationalize all of this, trying to reconcile the circle of glass that stole all life from his lungs with the very-much-not-dead man before him and the knowledge that the women who is his driver _must_ be alive, too.

“Oh, no, we were in town,” Malos answers, which doesn’t help at all. “Luckily Nia’s the best healer I’ve ever fucking known.”

Zelos snaps a little bit now, grateful that apparently he killed a handful less people than he thought he did but still confused as fuck and kind of pissed because: “What the hell are you on about!? _No one_ just _survives_ a cannon blast!” Ether roars in his throat strong enough to make Lloyd sick. “There shouldn’t have been anything left for a healer to heal!”

“I had a shield,” Malos says and Zelos fucking loses it.

“NO ARCHITECT-DAMNED SHIELD COULD POSSIBLY—”

And the words die in his throat because Malos holds his left hand above his head and puts up the strongest ether shield any of them have ever seen. It’s big enough to cover all ten of them, a dome of swirling purple touching the ground on all sides, and it’s- it’s _dense._ Every blade and flesh eater can feel it, the strength of the ether fueling it, can feel how much power it would take to crack it and it would take a _lot_ of power to crack it.

“I mean, the strain of keeping it up around all eight of us nearly killed me and Anna both,” Malos admits, as he lets the shield down. His display has gathered a few staring eyes, but no one in the party pays the passerbys any attention. “But like I said: Nia’s the best fucking healer in all of Aselia, so we got out mostly alright.”

The “mostly” is a little terse, and—maybe it’s something about the way Malos tilts his head, or maybe Lloyd really is just now noticing, but; a spiderweb of pale white scars trails up from Malos’ core crystal, all the way up his neck and to his chin. Ether burns, Lloyd recognizes, because he’s got a few of those himself. From the looks of the pattern of the scars, there’s probably more hidden under Malos’ shirt.

“What the hell,” Zelos whispers, still not certain a shield even of that size and strength could have stopped his own destructive power, but ultimately unable to argue with the man standing alive before him.

“That’s great? This is great??” Lloyd says, still a little confused but mostly delighted. ( _His mom is alive and he’s talking to her blade and he can_ meet her—)

“I…” Kratos stammers, fumbling with the words. A million things roil in his chest so thickly that he can hardly see straight. He feels lost ( _the thing he believed for fifteen years was a lie_ ) and horrified ( _if he’d just looked, if he’d just_ ), disbelieving ( _because it can’t be possible_ ) and excited _(because somehow it is_ ) and he stares at Malos, trying to keep up, trying to _breathe._

The locket hanging around his neck is a tremendous weight on his chest, pressing into the skin just beneath his core crystal.

_Anna._

She’s alive.

( _No wonder the Architect was so insistent that he come here._ )

“I?” Kratos tries again, but words still fail him.

Malos laughs a little, then takes pity on Kratos.

“Come on, let’s go see her,” he says, nodding and starting back down the way he came. “She needs to pull her head out of all that paperwork anyway, it’s not healthy for her. You’ll _love_ to hear about the peace treaty she’s drafting though, I’m sure!”

Surprise and fondness bubble in Kratos’ core, and Lloyd nearly trips over his feet as the meaning of those words catch up to him.

“Wait a minute, _Mom_ stopped the war!?” he asks, delighted.

“Yup!” Malos grins back at him. “Anna Irving sets out to do, and maybe it takes her twenty years, but she does!” He winks. “I’ll let her explain, though, she was really looking forward to it—practiced a speech and everything!”

“Did the two of you know we were coming?” Raine calls as she marches closer to the front of the group so she can hold the conversation. At the look Lloyd throws her, she explains: “Well I can’t imagine anyone practicing a speech if they don’t anticipate having someone to give it to.”

Malos laughs. “Got a point,” he relents. “Though we didn’t, exactly—we knew _someone_ was coming, but Anna only had a feeling it was you.” He says _you_ and looks more at Kratos than anyone else, though Kratos is too caught up in his own thoughts to notice.

“How’d you know?” Lloyd asks, recalling the memory of standing into a dusty town next to a not-quite-dead boy, blue eyes shining as Mithos urged him to go to Meltokio.

“Some lady visited me in my dreams,” Malos answers, and it clicks for Lloyd.

“Oh!” Colette says, it clicking for her, too. “You spoke with Martel?”

Malos shrugs. “She didn’t give her name, but yeah, I guess?” He hesitates as he runs the name over in his mind, finding it familiar. “Hey, isn’t Martel the…?”

“One of the original Aegises?” Colette finishes, when it seems he’s having trouble. “Yeah.”

Malos’ eyes find Kratos again, though Kratos keeps his head down. “Thought she was dead.”

Even though Kratos didn’t look like he was listening, his eyes flick upwards for just a moment at Malos’ words. Lloyd knows his father well enough by now to know he’s deeply uncomfortable, though there’s some humor in the shape of his response, just not in its delivery.

“My lot in life seems to be loved ones I thought had died coming back to me, miraculously or otherwise,” Kratos answers, voice low.

Malos simply rolls his eyes, familiar with the man’s grimness enough to laugh at it. “Hey, I wouldn’t sound so disappointed about that!”

“I am not disappointed,” Kratos argues, tersely. And there _is_ fondness brimming his voice, an undercurrent to his exhaustion. “I am just…”

( _Just wondering if the man who created this world had anything to do with that or if it’s actually just coincidence, not certain which option is more comforting._ )

He’s saved from having to answer by Zelos, who’s noticed their destination.

“Hey wait hang on,” Zelos says, his pitch high and nervous as he stops dead in his tracks. “We’re going to the castle?”

“No lodging better in Meltokio for the world-renowned revolutionary diplomat!” Malos explains with a shark-like grin, either not noticing or not caring about the artificial Aegis’ clear discomfort. Colette sends a worried glance at her brother, but lets her very-distracted driver pull her ahead.

“Come on, I’m pretty sure they don’t let any slimy officials we’re used to in here,” Seles says, grabbing Zelos’ hand and tugging him gently forward. “And I’ve _always_ wanted to see the one place in Tethe’alla they thought too good for us to visit.”

Sheena’s hands find Zelos’ remaining hand, and she tugs him forward as well. “If anyone looks twice at you, I’ll punch ‘em,” she promises, grinning brightly.

Zelos is a little bit reassured—and waiting _outside_ is probably a worse idea for him—so he lets his sisters tug him along, admitting he shares Seles’ opinion the matter of the castle. He sends Sheena a sidelong look, though.

“What if I _want_ the girls looking twice at me?”

“I can punch you, too!”

Zelos laughs, put more at ease by Sheena’s threat than anything else—and then promptly chokes on the laughter as cold fear slides down his throat and he feels Colette tremble with the weight of it, _feels_ her shuffle behind Lloyd before he’s close enough to see it. Lloyd’s sharp frustration and protectiveness bubble up along the three-way ether link, too, but it’s not as strong or as alarming as Colette’s fear.

He takes the lead, much to Seles’ confusion.

“Whoa hey, I appreciate the enthusiasm but maybe _don’t_ go attacking Sylvarant’s Special Inquisitor,” comes Malos’ voice—louder than the rest—before Zelos sees Lloyd reaching for the swords on his hips, glaring down a rather intimidating woman as he angles himself to be as between her and Colette as possible.

“Malos is right, boy,” the Sylvaranti woman agrees, in a tone that Zelos isn’t sure if he should read as hostile or if that halting sharpness is just her default. “Starting a fight on Tethe’allan turf definitely won’t do the upcoming peace talks any favors.”

“Well excuse me for being a little defensive,” Lloyd snaps and Zelos lets out a short, uncomfortable laugh because Lloyd is. _Angry._ He rarely gets this angry.

The Sylvaranti woman withdraws her hands from behind her back and raises them—empty—as a clear gesture of peace. “I do not mean Colette any harm,” she insists. “And forgive me, for the last time we met. It was… wrong, of me.”

“Morag was only following my orders,” says the boy next to her—no, not boy. Despite his size, his face suggests he’s a handful of years older than Morag, and now that he’s drawn attention to himself everyone but Kratos and Presea and Malos do a double-take, because that’s _Sylvarant’s Emperor._

He’s wearing formal, but not flashy clothes, in contrast to Morag’s military uniform, and he stands a head shorter than his companion—the two of them share a face shape and the same dark hair. Siblings, Presea concludes after a moment, evident more in the way they hold themselves (identical rigid shoulders and straight backs, hands placed behind them once Morag puts hers back down) than their physical similarities.

“Morag was also the one who rightly called off the search,” Emperor Hugo continues, sending a small smile to his sister. “Had it not been for her, I would have continued the search for the Aegis in accordance of what I believed my father would have wanted. Though it’s apparent to me now, I do not want the same things my father wanted. This war is… foolish. I’ll be glad to see it end.”

“Agreed,” Morag echoes, then lowers her head. “Though I should not take the credit for calling off the search for Colette. It was Brighid who made me see sense.”

Colette cocks her head to the side and takes a step forward as Lloyd relaxes, curiosity burning in her much stronger than her fear. ( _Zelos remembers when she insisted she wasn’t brave and chokes on his laughter._ )

“Is… Brighid your blade?” Colette asks.

Morag nods, short.

Then, after a second of hesitation, she continues: “Colette, you do truly have my apologies. You deserve much more than what my country has put you through.” Her eyes flicker to Colette’s scarred—if healed—core crystal, which Colette immediately clasps her hands in front of it.

“It’s alright,” Colette says, the kindness of her smile betrayed only by the tightness of her clasped fingers and the unmoving knot of bitterness that sits in the middle of the ether tying her to her driver and her brother. When Morag opens her mouth to protest, Colette shakes her head. “It really is. You aren’t directly responsible for what happened to me, and you realized it- um- was kind of messed up!” That bitterness—or maybe it’s Zelos’—escapes her in a short laugh, and nervous shame coats their link, though she doesn’t stop smiling.

Morag hesitates a moment more, then continues, words sharp and clear: “I would have dragged you back to that prison had that man—” her eyes flick over to Kratos “—not saved you, and I would have gone after you again had my- had Brighid not convinced me otherwise, and that, I am directly responsible for. And I am sorry.”

Colette considers the words a moment, clearly uncomfortable but still weighing Morag’s sincerity with a patience Zelos could never muster. Lloyd reaches out and puts a hand on her arm. Colette smiles.

“Thank you for the apology,” she says. “And please give my thanks to Brighid, as well.”

Morag lowers her head in acquiescence, satisfied.

“You have my apologies, as well, Colette, for my country’s actions,” Hugo adds, after a moment. “And—though perhaps it is not my place—I would like to inform you and your fellow Aegis that neither of you need worry about your power being used like that again.” ( _He thinks about mentioning the fact this is one of the most prominent points in the peace treaty he is soon to sign, but decides to just tell them the more relevant:_ ) “Both of the cannons have been destroyed.”

Numb surprise squeezes Colette’s core, while cold relief that he’s a little embarrassed to be feeling sweeps Zelos off his feet. The Aegises and their driver are too caught up in this sea of surprise and relief to manage to speak, so Sheena does for them.

“They have?” she asks, somewhat incredulous.

“That they have!” Malos agrees, as if they need him to vouch for the emperor. “We took care of Tethe’alla’s—” (It’s not clear who he means by _we,_ but Kratos assumes at least Anna and the rest of her immediate family was involved) “—but Sylvarant’s own Special Inquisitor burned theirs down!”

Morag blushes and ducks her head down.

“Once I’d truly understood the cannon’s nature and purpose, I could not let such an abomination stand on this planet any longer,” Morag says quietly, her voice shaking with the slightest fury. “I was happy to work with Anna in destroying them.”

“Mom helped destroy them?” Lloyd whispers, awed, as the news catches up to him.

“That’s what I just said, kid,” Malos says.

Morag looks Lloyd up and down again, approving. “What was it you said your name was, boy? Lloyd Irving?”

Lloyd nods, once, short and excited.

( _A memory rings in his ears, and in Morag’s._

 _“My name is Lloyd Irving, and you will be taking her over my dead body!”_ )

Morag smiles. “It seems the fire runs in the family,” she remarks. “Your mother must be proud.”

“Y- Yeah,” Lloyd stammers. He hopes she is.

“Anyway,” Hugo says, politely. “We should be on our way. Sorry for keeping you.”

He leads Morag off with only a few more pleasantries exchanged as the party says polite goodbyes and then Malos leads everyone off again.

They aren’t walking for too much longer before they approach their destination. Malos pushes the door open to a high-class suite of the castle without knocking, startling the two people already in the room (which he introduces as Jin—his husband—and Lora—Anna’s sister via three sides of adoption—) though they only seem mildly annoyed. The suite’s large, the door opening to a common area with couches, four other doors in sight. One is closed, but the other three show off two bedrooms and a bathroom, respectively.

“Hey, Kratos,” says Jin and “Architect’s name, is that Lloyd!?” says Lora and Lloyd gets swept up in a hug by his aunt ( _he didn’t know he had an aunt??_ ) and she starts fussing over him so thoroughly that he can’t really pay attention to anything else for a moment.

“Look at you??” Lora says, bending down—not that she has to bend far at all—to be on eye-level with Lloyd, running her hands over his face. “You got so big!!! Though you still have your mother’s baby cheeks.” She giggles and pinches one and Lloyd gets out a _hey_ in protest before she’s speaking again. “Your father’s eyes, too… _and_ his stupid hair.” She ruffles Lloyd’s hair, which is _not_ as bad as Kratos’, thank you very much! Lloyd scowls and pushes her off which he _thinks_ he’s allowed.

He’s not used to this, like, at all.

His confusion must show, because after a second Lora pulls away. “Sorry, are you alright?” she asks.

“Uh, I mean, yeah,” Lloyd says, shrugging. “Sorry I just. This is significantly more family than I thought I had an hour ago?” He’s too overwhelmed to feel bad about being rude or whatever.

“Ohhhh.” Lora looks sympathetic, at least. “Shit, and you haven’t even seen your mum yet. We’ll catch up later, then.” She gives Lloyd a quick hug, then looks up to find Malos, who got pulled into a conversation Jin is having with Presea. “Malos?”

Malos’ head snaps up. “What? Oh!” He extricates himself from the conversation and then goes to knock on the closed door, which Lora helpfully pushes Lloyd closer to, while Jin nods for Kratos to head that direction as well.

“We’ll stay here, honey,” Zelos says, raising his hand in a wave at Lloyd. “Don’t wanna crowd you.”

“Yeah, you deserve to see your mom without all of us getting in the way,” Genis adds, with a short laugh.

Colette gives him a supportive thumbs up.

( _He can feel both Colette’s and Zelos’ nervous enthusiasm—or maybe that’s just his own, echoed back and magnified through them._ )

“Anna?” Malos calls. “Get your ass out of that paperwork, that company showed up!”

The sound of movement, muffled, followed by a delighted “oh!” The scrape of a chair. Footsteps. The doorknob turns and the door pulls open.

Anna stands there, free hand on her hip and looking kind of smug, and then she sees Lloyd and her heart stops dead.

“Holy fucking shit,” she breathes, shock washing over her face. “I wasn’t expecting _you_.”

“Uh.” That wasn’t the reaction Lloyd had expected. “Hi?”

Anna blinks. Shakes her head. Takes note of how much company they have and either reads the room or Malos conveys something to her, because her hand finds Lloyd’s wrist and she goes: “Sorry, sorry, come in,” before she drags him into the room, and Kratos follows a step behind. Malos shuts the door behind them.

“Sorry, Lloyd,” Anna says, not letting go of him. “I. I was expecting just Kratos. I didn’t think—” She fumbles with the words, and all the while Lloyd takes this in, takes _her_ in.

She looks—not old enough to be his mom. Maybe the shard of a purple core crystal she has embedded in her collarbone has something to do with that. ( _Blade eaters, it seems, age slower than humans._ ) He has her chin and shares both the color and the fluffiness of his hair with her. Her eyes are older than her face and her face is soft, twisted with a delighted shock Lloyd has only seen on Martel’s face once before. She reaches up to cup Lloyd’s face in her hands, palms calloused and…

Scarred.

At least, her right hand is. She’s not wearing sleeves like Malos is, so the scars they share are written pale against her brown skin. Ether burn scars, spiderwebbing down the entirety of her right arm, no inch left untouched. Lloyd winces a little at the sight, but then his mother’s eyes draw him in again and a grin slowly spreads on his lips, excitement bubbling up in his stomach and echoed back to him through his blades.

“Hi, Mom,” he says.

“Hi Lloyd,” she echoes, grinning wide and pushing her fingers through his hair. She’s crying, just a little bit. “It’s so good to see you? I never thought I would again.”

“Y- yeah?” Lloyd says, not sure what else to say.

His mother laughs and pulls away from him. “Sorry, guess I should explain, a little bit.”

“Please,” Kratos says, sounding somewhat choked.

“Alright.” Anna steps backwards and leans her weight on the edge of the desk—which is the only furniture in this room, for some reason—hands placed on either side of her to steady herself. She opens her mouth. Reconsiders. “How much did Malos tell you?”

“Uh, that he managed to get a shield up and save you?” Lloyd offers, with a shrug. He looks to Kratos, but Kratos is… Well, Kratos isn’t great at conversations, all the time, and Lloyd’s used to that.

“Mmmm, okay, okay.” Anna nods her head.

“Which I still don’t…” Kratos begins, then chokes on the words. “I mean, I suppose I shouldn’t complain, but—”

Anna laughs and puts her hands up. “No, believe me, I know. I’m surprised we survived it, too. I thought we wouldn’t, and then…” She pauses, eyes growing a little distant. Her left hand falls down to the desk, but her right hand remains up—she turns her palm over in the light, considering her scars. “That’s what these are from, actually. Turns out having someone else’s ether channeled through you unwillingly, uh… Well.”

She drops her hand. Takes a deep breath.

“Someone saved us. We don’t know who. Jin was the only one in any position to share ether with Malos, and it wasn’t him.” Anna laughs, bright, kind of bitter. “Don’t know if I’m the kind of gal who actually _believes_ in the Architect, and I doubt he’d save a random group of blades and humans, but what happened definitely felt like some kind of miracle.”

Kratos stops breathing.

When his lungs start working again, the first thing that comes out of them is a startled, half-laugh. He puts a hand up to hide his face, then turns the action into grabbing the locket (he wishes he could keep his hands off of it), tries not to look at his wife, his son.

( _But of course, of_ course, _the Architect fucking would_.)

“What?” Anna laughs, casual—then it turns into concern, after a second. “You okay, Kratos? You look a little pale.”

“I’m…” he fumbles for the words. “Fine. I’m fine.”

Lloyd doesn’t look like he believes him, and Anna straight up laughs.

“You really didn’t get any better at lying,” she says.

Kratos glares, flicks his eyes towards Lloyd. If he’s going to have this conversation— _he doesn’t want to have this conversation_ —he sure as hell isn’t going to do it in front of Lloyd. Anna glares back, but shrugs after a moment. She’ll allow him that.

Lloyd watches the exchange, confused and not really understanding the nonverbal ways his parents communicate, then clears his throat.

“I mean, we _did_ meet the Architect,” he says. “So he is real. And that’s… um. A thing.”

“Oh shit.” Anna looks somewhere between surprised and delighted. “Did you?”

Lloyd nods, while Kratos tries to keep his breathing steady without anyone (Anna, specifically) noticing that he is having trouble to begin with. “Yeah! We met him, and he helped us rewire the blade system—”

“Ohh, I’d wondered if that was you!” Anna says, breaking into a slow—proud—grin that makes Lloyd’s heart burst. “I’d been tracking your movements… which is why I should have expected you, too, Lloyd, but…” She stops, shrugs helplessly, then seems to see him for the first time all over again. “ _Fuck_ , you got so big!” she whispers.

“Haha, uh, guess so,” Lloyd says, scratching at the back of his head. “You… knew I was alive?”

Anna breaks into a grin, excited to explain, then realizes herself, and the weight of this truth. The grin is replaced by a look of uneasy guilt, and then a more sheepish smile. “Well. Yes. It’s…” She hesitates. Swaps gears. “We’ve only been tracking you since you found Colette.”

“You could have met up with us,” Kratos says, slow. He feels a little wistful for the things that could have been, for even a few less months of thinking she was dead.

“Well.” Anna makes a face. “Let me rephrase: We’d been tracking reports of your movements, so we knew what you were up to, but never exactly where you were,” she explains, with that same uneasy, apologetic smile. “In the end it was easier to just let you do your thing, and use the distraction to do ours. Which is why there’s peace talks going on between the two countries!” The smile becomes a more smug grin. “I told you I could do it!”

Kratos smiles, fondness bubbling in his ether despite the tightness of his heart.

“I doubted not you, but humanity,” he whispers.

“I think it’s gonna work out this time, though,” Anna says, excitement creeping into her tone. She grips the edge of the desk. “I really do. Sylvarant’s emperor was very reasonable, and his sister is a smart woman. And we didn’t even have to overthrow Tethe’alla’s asshole king—the princess did that for us. Which was kind of disappointing.”

Lloyd laughs, caught by surprise. Kratos rolls his eyes, but he’s fond too.

“But the both of them are tired of the war, and with the new blade system, and—oh!” Somehow, Anna gets even more excited. She leans towards Kratos, grinning from ear to ear. “The Aegis cannons! We—"

“Malos told us,” Lloyd interrupts.

Anna goes from excited to furious in two seconds flat. “What! He promised I could!” She raises her voice dramatically and calls: “Malos you son of a bitch!!”

There’s a moment’s pause, and then a distant “I love you too!” from the other side of the door.

Anna sighs.

“You can always tell us the details, later,” Kratos offers, and Anna’s mood brightens immediately.

“That’s true,” she says, kicking her feet against the desk, because she’s sitting on it now. “And you can tell me what ya’ll’ve been up to—later, though. Later. I do have to finish finalizing this peace treaty today.”

Now that she mentioned it, Lloyd’s curious. He moves a little closer to the desk, trying to peer at it—Anna sees this and jumps off the desk so he can.

“They let you write the peace treaty?” Lloyd asks.

Anna nods. “I’m the neutral party,” she answers. “Though the two degrees in politics definitely helped, I think.”

“Whoa!” Lloyd turns to his mom again, looking at her with newfound awe. “You went to college?” ( _School being as difficult as it was for him, Lloyd had mostly planned to just be a blacksmith like Dirk._ )

“You think I spent fifteen years doing nothing?” Anna laughs. ( _What she doesn’t say is that, school being difficult for her too, it took more frustration than any of her family was certain was worth it even after she was done._ ) “Though I also spent a lot of time traveling, gathering support, telling anyone who’d listen what the war was built on, and what the Aegises were actually used for.” She sends a quick, grateful smile to Kratos, because if he’d never told her the truth about the Aegis cannons, she’d have never passed the knowledge onto anyone else.

Kratos sends a short—though more uncomfortable, on his end—smile back, joining them at the desk so he can look at the peace treaty himself, (not that he can do more than skim the first page right now). The desk is between him and Anna, but he’s… close enough to touch her, now. Not that he does. He’s certain the moment he does he’ll crack completely, and he’d rather not do that in front of Lloyd.

Anna catches his eyes and raises her eyebrows. “Well?” she asks, nodding at the peace treaty he’s examining. “Any thoughts?”

“Um.” Kratos looks at it again. Decides to be honest. “It’s not like I’ve done more than read two sentences,” he admits. It’s… easier. To joke around. With Anna right there. Some of the weight pressing into his core has been lifted. “I can look at it later if you’d like,” he offers, then squints a little, considering the page he’s holding a little closer. “Is this your handwriting? I know it’s been fifteen years, but…”

Anna laughs and raises her left hand, wiggling her fingers. “I’m a lefty now,” she explains. “My right arm isn’t completely dead, but fine motor control is definitely off the table. _And_ me and Malos both had to relearn how to fight, which was a bitch.” She huffs, then takes a deeper breath. “It’s fine, though. I lived. That’s what matters.”

There’s something somewhat tense, in the air, or maybe that’s just how unfamiliar Lloyd actually is with his mom. He considers her a moment, tests the waters gently:

“I’m glad you survived,” he whispers.

His mother smiles back at him.

“Me too.”

And there’s… something still, about the tension, about the vagueness of her answer paired with something she said a little earlier. Lloyd squints at her, pushes a little deeper into the waters.

“Were you… surprised? When you found out I was alive?” he asks.

And there it is: that flash of guilt across her face, the way she averts her eyes for a moment before she looks at him again, eyes wide and smile sheepish. She laughs a nervous laugh that could easily rival Zelos.

“I… told Dirk to take you and get out of there, if anything happened,” Anna explains carefully. “Take you, and go into hiding, somewhere safe. I didn’t have a way to contact him, or any idea where you were, and I-” Her voice cracks a little bit with despair. “I thought that you’d be safer—”

Something sharp twists in Lloyd’s stomach, the pain and anger of betrayal closing their claws around his throat. He tries to think around it, breathe around it. “ _Safer_?” he squeaks, offended.

His mother cringes. “I know, I know,” she says, hastily, putting her hands up in a soothing gesture. “I’m sorry, I really am, but—After our village was destroyed, we were on the run and that’s really not a place to raise a child?”

She has a point, “But—” Lloyd protests.

“I know, I know,” she repeats, and it’s clear she _does_ realize this was a mistake. “I should have tried to find you anyway. I was just scared of something happening to you. I was…”

“Surely you could have trusted Jin or Malos to look after him,” Kratos interjects.

Anna wilts under the accusation. “I know,” she repeats again, quieter. “But we had both governments watching us so closely, and it’s not like we exactly avoided getting arrested ever and I just… I didn’t want…” She stops a moment, clearly struggling with this, looking to Kratos for help. “I mean, Kratos, just _imagine_ what would have happened had either of the governments had gotten their hands on him, had _realized_ what he is—”

“Oh,” Kratos says, short. The darkness that clouds Anna’s face clouds his, too.

“Exactly!!” Anna says. “ _Exactly_! And considering what they did to _you_ —”

Kratos squeezes his eyes shut and grips the chair beside him to steady himself, taking the images conjured immediately to his mind ( _strapped down all he knows is fear he’s been awake all of ten seconds he can’t move he can’t breathe harsh lights a cruel smile_ ) and shoving them down where he can’t reach them.

“Sorry, sorry,” Anna apologizes, and Kratos shakes his head, sharply.

“I’m fine,” he assures her.

Lloyd, somewhat startled by Kratos’ reaction, and generally confused by this conversation, looks between his two parents for an answer. “I… what?” he asks. “What did they—?” he begins, then decides better of it. “What’s so special about me?”

“It’s technically impossible for blades and humans to have kids together, Lloyd,” Anna says, which like, Lloyd knew. “And yet here you are, like some kind of Architect-damned miracle.”

Kratos chokes on the air in his lungs.

( _A voice roars in his ears._

_“Perhaps it was inevitable, the moment I hooked my own Cruxis Crystal up to the network.”_

_A sad, somewhat bitter smile._

_“All of that data, all of my memories, bleeding into the very foundation of the world…”_ )

His hands reach for the locket again before he can stop himself.

“Kratos?” Anna asks, the concern in her voice much sharper this time. “You sure you’re good?”

“Fine, fine,” he insists. He pulls his hands away as if the locket burned him. It might as well have, for how aware he is of it, of the picture inside. Himself. Anna. Lloyd.

( _Perhaps it was inevitable._ )

Anna might have pressed the matter, but Lloyd speaks again.

“You really think me being a hybrid would have…” he asks, but has to trail off, because he still doesn’t fully grasp the things his parents are afraid of.

“Maybe,” Anna says, voice softening, tearing her gaze away from her husband and fixing them on her son. “Maybe not. But I didn’t want to risk it. Both countries were certainly capable of turning you into some kind of science experiment and…” She trails off, that guilt washing over her face again. “I’m sorry. It’s not really a good excuse. I should have looked for you. Nothing was stopping me from just going to visit you every once in a while, even if I didn’t have you traveling with me. I’m sorry.”

She grips the edge of the desk. Lloyd considers her. How much the guilt is eating her. He smiles.

“It’s okay,” he tells her. “I’m not… I don’t like getting upset about the past, about things I can’t change. It makes it too hard to look forward.”

She laughs, startled, fond.

Lloyd presses on: “And I’m getting to meet you now!” he says. “That’s better than- than not getting to ever.” His smile is a little shaky, maybe, and threads of concern pass into him from Colette and Zelos and that makes him more unsteady than it should, as their concern cradles him even though they don’t know what’s wrong. He fights against it with firm joy. “So. I’m happy.”

Anna looks so proud she’s not sure what to do about it, which results in her reaching forward and taking her son’s face in her hands, kissing him on the forehead. She holds him there, for a moment.

“I’m happy too,” she says, and lets him go. “We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

“Yeah,” Lloyd agrees.

( _So much it’s almost overwhelming, so he tries not to think about it._ )

“Anyway…” Anna says, slowly, eyes flicking towards Kratos, who’s still gripping the chair for support and still looks like he’s having trouble breathing. “You mind giving me and your father a moment?”

“Oh! Sure,” Lloyd says. He laughs, his smile edging a little too close to knowing. “I’ll give you some space.”

He backs up, waving, keeping his eyes on his mom until he can’t anymore. He opens the door, slips out, closes it behind him.

And Anna and Kratos are alone.

“Come here,” Anna says, and Kratos does. He releases the chair and joins her on her side of the desk, closing and opening hands as he stands before her. She looks up at him, longing and sadness both bursting in her chest as she considers her husband. He looks… no different than she remembers him, though he seems an inch away from a brewing storm more now than he ever has before. Something’s… definitely wrong.

“Can I…?” she asks, and he nods.

She reaches up with both hands and runs her fingers over his cheeks. He starts crying on the spot, and lets out a short laugh in his embarrassment, though he lets the tears fall. His heart beats out of sync in his chest, happy to see her but still trying to take it in, wishing he could _stop thinking about_ the man who gave him the locket that burns against his skin.

( _Anna’s alive! Shouldn’t that be enough?_ )

“It’s… good to see you again,” Anna says, slowly, hands running down his neck and to his core crystal, a familiar path. She hadn’t quite realized how much she missed him. She gets distracted by the shape of his now-broken core crystal under her fingers. “What happened to your…?”

The cut is precise and perfect, but it takes her by surprise nonetheless. She traces the hole in the ruby crystal with gentle, curious touches, wanting to memorize the shape and sensation of it. Kratos shivers a little. It’s been a long time since—

“Holy shit,” Anna says as the realization hits her, distracting him entirely. Her head whips towards the closed door—likely in Lloyd’s direction. She breaks into a grin that Kratos recognizes, and he fondly rolls his eyes as she blurts: “I told Lora it was a family tradition!!!”

“Anna,” Kratos says, exasperated.

“Three makes it family tradition!!”

“You aren’t even worried about Lloyd?”

“What? No!” Anna scoffs. She’s still touching Kratos’ core crystal, which is more distracting than it should be. “I mean clearly he’s fine. And now he matches his mom!” Still grinning, she pulls one hand away to tap the chunk of Malos’ core crystal that she has.

Kratos sighs, but he smiles, as well.

( _The locket doesn’t burn quite as strongly._ )

“Why… didn’t you tell me you survived?” he asks, slowly. “You knew where to find me.”

The pain sits somewhat distantly in his core, not enough to really get worked up about, numbed in the wake of her being alive at all, but—he would rather think about this than the other thing plaguing him, so he asks this instead, selfishly in hopes to distract her.

Anna’s hands move downwards a little, loathe to be idle as she is and always thinking too many thoughts at once. Her hands find the chain of the locket and Kratos almost chokes again, fear clutching him sharply, though all she does is fiddle with the chain as guilt paints itself across her narrowed eyes.

“Come on, Kratos,” she says, in a tone that falls somewhere between teasing and tired exasperation, trying to push away her guilt with a joke. “Me? March up to Mithos’ tower? I know you know about the rumors.”

Kratos’ ether pulses uncomfortably, and he squirms a little under her touch. He’s… well aware of the rumors. Blades going to Mithos’ tower and never returning, drivers found dead.

( _He… helped with that, actually._ )

“Mithos wouldn’t have…” he begins.

“He kind of hated me,” Anna counters.

“He did not.”

Anna raises her eyebrows.

Kratos sighs.

“…but I suppose you were right to worry,” he admits, though he doesn’t want to. “Mithos was very… unstable, in those final years.”

(Final. Twenty. Years.)

( _At least he managed to regain some of his sanity, in the end. Kratos doesn’t want to think about what he would have done—how he would have felt—if Mithos had to be struck down in his insanity._ )

Anna hums, quiet, her eyes cast down. Her shoulders sag a little.

“Sorry,” she whispers.

Kratos takes a breath, then grabs her gently by the shoulders.

“Like Lloyd said, you are here now,” he whispers back. “That’s what matters, isn’t it?”

His grip tightens, just a little, on her. He relishes in her warmth under his fingertips. She’s _here,_ she’s _alive,_ his _Anna._ He wants to pull her closer, hold her tight, forget about anything and everything that isn’t _her_ for just—

A soft _click._ A quiet “oh” from Anna.

Kratos’ ether runs cold.

His hands fly to meet Anna’s, ripping the locket out of her grasp despite her startled, furious “HEY!” of protest. He pushes her away and takes a step back, slamming the locket against his chest with his palm to close it and to hide it from view, as if that would stop the way she glares at him.

“What the _hell_!” Anna demands.

Kratos stares at her, defensive and panicked, mind spinning rapidly for some kind of answer. He wishes his heart would stop doing the weird off-beat thing it’s doing, skipping pulses and finding a shaky rhythm that stands opposite to the flow of his ether. He tries to breathe. Tries to think around the roar of ether in his ears. His eyes fix on Anna’s face, but her confusion only makes him remember the picture she just saw.

“P- Please don’t,” Kratos stammers, feeling… small. Like he’s that echo of tiny yet overwhelming fear that was the first sensation he ever knew in this life, except this time the fear isn’t coming from a driver he never got to meet, but from himself.

“And why the fuck not?” Anna asks, looking about ready to just rip the locket from his hands.

“It’s,” Kratos tries, can’t find the rest of an excuse. He averts his gaze. Tries to grab all the wayward emotions in his chest and push them back into place, but he wants to be—anywhere, so long as it’s not here, not having this conversation.

Anna’s starting to look more confused than angry. “It’s… just a picture of us,” she says, slowly, and Kratos shudders because _no it isn’t._ His reaction makes her eyes narrow, a spark of concern lighting in her chest. “What’s so wrong with me seeing it? You embarrassed?”

She shifts to a more playful tone, trying to get him to relax, but Kratos is so far gone that she had literally no hope of hitting that mark.

It only takes Anna a moment to realize that, and then she exhales softly.

She’s seen him like this before; when talking about the experiments done on him, the cannons, Martel. She isn’t sure why the hell a picture in a locket has caused this reaction, but she _has_ noticed he’s been fiddling the damn thing off and on since he walked in here. There must be something he’s not telling her. Something he’s seconds away from cracking under the weight of. Something he’d rather pretend didn’t happen.

( _Typical Kratos, really_.)

“Hey, hey, alright,” Anna says, aiming for soothing this time as she raises her hands in an offering of peace. “I haven’t seen you this bad since I made you talk about the cannons.” (Bad taste, bringing that up now? Maybe, but mention of the cannons doesn’t even elicit at least the sharp and angry laugh it normally does.) “Do you wanna…?”

Kratos takes a slow, deliberate breath. Stubborn ass. “No,” he says.

“Okay, fine, fine,” Anna relents. She won’t _make_ him talk. “Come on, we at least need to get you breathing again though.”

She tugs gently on his fingers—the ones that _aren’t_ gripping that locket—pulling him with her until they’re both sitting on the ground, backs to the desk. Kratos closes his eyes and rests the back of his head to the desk, his knees up.

“Touching still fine?” Anna asks, and Kratos nods, shaky.

Permission granted, Anna presses all of her weight into his side, because when he can stand the physical contact it normally helps ground him. She threads her fingers through his, grateful her left hand is meeting his right, because the action would probably hurt her right hand. She squeezes. He squeezes back. Good.

He… doesn’t stop breathing like he’s wrestling with a literal tempest in his lungs, though. And his other hand has an iron-tight grip on that locket.

Anna glares at it for a moment, then holds out her free hand.

“Hand it over,” she says.

Kratos cracks his eyes open enough just to look at her, incredulous.

“You heard me!” she presses. She can’t really wiggle these fingers, so she just holds her hand towards him more insistently.

Kratos sighs, shaky and upset, but he extracts his hand from hers and leans forward so he can get his hands behind his neck to undo the clasp. He hesitates, but hands it over.

“Please be careful with it,” he whispers.

Anna’s not sure why he cares so much about the object that’s clearly causing him a lot of pain, but she swaps it to her left hand anyway, knowing that the chances of her dropping it if she leaves it in her right are at least 50-percent. What she wants to do with it requires more finesse than she can do right-handed anymore, anyway.

She puts it on the floor behind her back and flicks it under the desk. Out of sight, out of mind.

“Hey!” Kratos says, having the gall to look offended.

Anna rolls her eyes. She didn’t hurt it. The fancy castle floors are carpeted, so she didn’t scratch it, and she didn’t hear it _hit_ anything, either.

“It’s obviously bothering you,” she tells him. “So I’m getting it out of the way.”

Kratos starts to protest, but then relents with another long sigh, leaning back against the desk again. Anna presses herself into his side again, tucking her head to his shoulder, the familiarity of the position filling her with warmth, though the way Kratos trembles makes concern beat in her heart along with that warmth.

She wants to pry, since the locket _seems_ harmless enough, and it driving Kratos this bonkers doesn’t make much sense, but Kratos is… kind of delicate. And he said he didn’t want to talk. Maybe that was just him being stubborn, but she’ll respect the request for now.

Maybe he’s still just working through her being alive, anyway. How would she know.

“You want a distraction?” Anna offers, knowing he’s not going to stop thinking about whatever’s bothering him until he has something else to worry about. “Got plenty of politics I could bore you with, or I could get the peace treaty for you to read through.” That last offer is a little bit selfish, because, she really _does_ want his opinion on it before she hands it over for Sylvarant’s and Tethe’alla’s rulers to sign. (It feels wrong, for Kratos, the man who stopped the first war, to be here and _not_ have a say in what Anna hopes to be the end of the last war—for his sake, and for the sake of the whole planet.)

“No,” Kratos answers.

“You sure?”

Kratos nods.

Anna squints at him, but lets it go. “Okay.”

He takes a deep breath.

“Actually, I…” he says, slowly.

He doesn’t know exactly what to say, or where to begin even if he did. He was pretty sure he wasn’t going to tell anyone this, to be honest, but this is… Anna.

It’s Anna.

In his silence, she runs her fingers up and down his ether lines that are left exposed between his shirt and gloves, tracing the circle in his shoulder a few times before her fingers move down again, up again. It’s something she used to do a lot. It’s… comforting, to be honest. Kratos breathes, deliberate, holding his head above the waves of the stormy sea in his blood. He makes a choice.

“Can I… tell you something?” he says.

His eyes are still closed, so he can’t see Anna raise her eyebrows, but he knows that’s exactly what she’s doing. After a moment, she laughs, nudges him playfully.

“Of course,” she tells him.

Okay. Further than he expected to get into this conversation he never intended to have. Keep breathing, Kratos, you’ve got this.

“I’m still…” he begins, tries again. “I haven’t told anyone else. And I think… I think that perhaps the fewer who know, the better.” It’s not exactly easy knowledge, and he’s certain he’s not the only one who would crack under its weight.

( _He thinks again, of the regret on the Architect’s face, when he finished explaining. The quiet, pained: “I’ve said too much, I think,” as he turned his face away from Kratos’ horror._ )

Kratos feels… bad, burdening Anna with it. But he can trust her, more than anyone else.

“Okay,” Anna says, quiet. She’s interested enough that she’s stopped tracing her fingers over his skin, her attention completely focused on what he’s going to say next.

“It…” Kratos starts, but that’s not right. He scowls. Maybe he should start a little sooner. “Lloyd said we spoke with the Architect, correct?”

“Ohh,” Anna says softly, a few things clicking in her mind. Talking with the guy who was supposed to be a myth but apparently is completely real, and also absolutely is the creator of your world… that’s gotta be a lot to process. “What was he like?” she asks, curious, and knowing that questions often help Kratos think.

This one, however, derails him completely.

“I. Ha- haha.” Kratos breaks into nervous laughter, all control he had over his lungs robbed from him again.

“Okay, sorry, didn’t realize that was a loaded question,” Anna says.

But of _course_ it was. Because, thinking about what kind of man the one they call god is only makes Kratos remember all the things they have in common, makes Kratos realize just _how much_ that is and _how much_ the Architect is like him.

Or rather, how much he is like the Architect.

Because the Architect… _is_ him.

“It’s- it is exactly what I am… having trouble with,” Kratos manages to explain, trembling as he forces the words out of his mouth. He digs his fingers into his knees. Reminds himself to breathe. Breathe. _Breathe._

“Why?” Anna pushes, gentle, playful because she has a hard time being anything but. (He loves that about her, he really really does.) “Was he… an asshole?”

Kratos shakes his head, sharp.

“No, no.”

“Being in the presence of god just generally overwhelming?” Anna guesses.

Kratos shakes his head again, grimaces.

“Not exactly.”

(It was more… _underwhelming_.)

“Do you want me to stop asking questions?” Anna sighs, gripping Kratos’ arm with both hands, wanting to grab him, wanting to anchor him down in the moment, anchor him amidst the storm he’s waging in his mind. “I’m trying to help, but…”

Kratos squeezes his eyes shut. “No, it’s. Well. Hang on.”

“Okay,” Anna says. “Gather your thoughts.”

She sits and she waits for him, running her fingers over his ether lines again to distract herself from her inherent restlessness. Questions make it easier for him, but only if she can ask the right question, and sometimes it’s hard to tell if she has the right question. And with questions failing, the only thing to do otherwise is wait and let Kratos think—he needs that, often. Time to find the words he’s looking for.

( _If he wasn’t so damn careful with his words, he wouldn’t need so much time, but… She likes how careful he is._ )

After a few minutes, Kratos finds the words he’s looking for—or words that will make do, for now.

“Well,” he says, around a knot in his throat. “I had… a conversation with him. Alone.”

“Gotcha,” Anna says, another piece of the puzzle slotting into place. Having a conversation alone with god just spells bad news. She opens her mouth, then hesitates, but… no, no, she’s certain this is the right question. “He tell you something he didn’t tell anyone else?”

Kratos nods. “Yes,” he answers, voice creaking.

“What’d he tell you?” Anna prompts. Things with Kratos move faster if someone gives him the words to work with.

Kratos swallows. Hesitates.

“His… his name.”

Anna squints, pulling a little bit away from Kratos so she can consider him. “Okay…” she says, skeptical. That’s a really weird reason to get so worked up, in her opinion, but there’s nothing to do but humor Kratos. “And it was…?”

He hesitates for much longer each time, syllables getting lodged in his throat. He feels like he’s on Derris-Kharlan again, watching the aged not-a-god-not-a-man laugh and shake his head, promise that Kratos won’t believe him if he tells the truth. His ether runs too cold and too fast, barely able to breathe around the clutch in his chest.

It shouldn’t be this hard to say his own name.

One at a time, he builds the syllables in his mouth, and forces them through his teeth:

“Kratos Aurion.”

He’s met with silence.

He opens his eyes to look at Anna, sees her blinking numbly, her face scrunched up with doubt and confusion.

“Back up you lost me,” she says, after a moment.

Kratos shakes his head.

“I did not,” he insists.

Doubt gives way to a stronger confusion. Anna glares.

“Then fucking _elaborate_.”

Kratos inhales. Builds the next sentence in his mind before he does as much as exhale.

“The Architect, he’s… me.”

It’s the first time Kratos has said it aloud, and the act winds him completely—the words hitting the air giving the notion much more power than it held before when it was secreted away in his chest. Anna’s confusion turns to horror, and Kratos quickly tries to put air back in his lungs so he can clarify.

“Or… I am a reflection of him, anyway,” he says. “Obviously we are not the same person. But I am still…”

He can’t say it again.

“What the fuck,” Anna whispers.

Kratos just nods, helpless. He does… feel a little better, though, having someone else to share his horror with. The truth is still oppressive, but now it is more like a heavy blanket, and less like an entire mountain, pinning him to the earth below.

“Why the fuck would he make you like that!?” Anna demands, her tone edging a little closer into anger.

Kratos shakes his head. She’s misunderstood—or rather, he hasn’t said enough.

“No, no, he didn’t- It was not intentional,” Kratos explains. “It… I forget how he explained it, exactly. But he said his memories… shaped the world. Or something like that. And so myself, and many other people he knew and loved, were reflected in our world.”

Anna frowns, silent as that sinks in. He can see the exact moment the weight of it hits her, because she jolts, eyes going wide.

“The locket!” she hisses.

She jumps to her feet, scrambling around the desk so she can find it, needing to have it in her hands _now._

“It’s his, isn’t it?” she asks, as she gets down on her knees to retrieve it from where it is under the desk. She fumbles with it once its she’s holding it, in her excitement to see the picture inside in this new light forgetting for a moment her right thumb isn’t nimble enough to undo the clasp of anything. She finally gets it open, and though she was intending to move back to Kratos, the picture freezes her in her tracks.

So she sits.

And she stares at it.

The picture is yellowing with age, and the date scribbled in the corner includes a month this planet doesn’t have, and a year this planet hasn’t reached yet. And now that Kratos isn’t yanking it out of her hands, she can really take it in—the similarities.

The differences.

“I look like shit,” she whispers.

The woman in the picture—her hair is too short, her face is too thin. There are bags under her eyes. And her smile, though happy, is full of clear exhaustion even as she looks down at the baby in her arms. A baby which is at least a year old, which means it is something other than post-pregnancy blues afflicting the woman.

The woman who is definitely, definitely Anna.

( _It’s impossible, really, to mistake your own face._ )

Anna shivers, gripping the locket in trembling fingers. She understands why Kratos has been so obsessed with it now, and why it has pained him. She wants to look up at him, tell him that, but she can’t tear her gaze away, can’t stop trailing her eyes over her face, his face ( _harder, eyes darker, and his smile, too, not at all free from exhaustion_ ), the face of that child, which must be…

“Even Lloyd…” she whispers.

( _He looks exactly the same as he does in other, old pictures she has of him, which is both a comfort—at least he is not plagued by whatever exhaustion plagues his parents—and something really uneasy, uncomfortable to grasp_.)

Kratos’ hand on her shoulder startles her. He’s knelt down beside her, his attention also on the locket. His grip’s a little too tight. Anna can’t blame him.

“Are you okay?” Kratos asks, trying to sound gentle but mostly just worried. “I know that this… is a lot…”

“Yeah, it sure is,” Anna agrees, with an uncomfortable laugh. She wants to ask if _he’s_ okay, but before she opens her mouth another realization knocks her in the chest and drops her from her knees to her butt, gasping for air on the way down.

“Anna?”

“He saved my fucking life,” she whispers, with what little air is left in her lungs.

She holds up her hand, turning it over as she considers the scars left on her skin, scars left by _someone_ channeling their ether through Malos without warning. The memory of the moment hasn’t left her. The strength of the power that saved her life and burned her arm, the _gentleness_ of it, like it wanted to save her while doing as little damage as possible. They’d all half-joked half-sincerely-considered it having been the Architect, but “god saved your life” is a much different thing to make peace with than “ _god saved your life because he is a mirrored image of your husband_ ”.

She puts her face in her hand. She wants to scream but she can’t do that now. Kratos puts an arm around her shoulders, and she’s grateful for that, really, _really_.

“Are… you okay?” Kratos asks, after a long, long moment.

“Hm,” Anna says. “No?” Kratos laughs at her answer, so that’s good. She takes a deep breath. Lets her hand fall to the ground, looks at the open locket again—looks at the picture of the Architect, his wife, his son. “You’re… He really was…”

There’s silence for a moment. Anna shifts so she’s a little more comfortable, and Kratos shifts with her, and there they are—sitting in the middle of the floor, staring at a dead man’s locket and trying not to drown under the weight of the truth it represents.

After another moment, Anna says: “I just can’t believe it.”

Kratos starts to say _me neither,_ but then he hears the grin in her tone before he even turns to see it.

“No,” Kratos begins.

Ana spins towards him, grin wide and a touch cocky.

“I fucked god!” she declares, delighted.

“ _No_.”

“Holy shit this is so much better than fucking a war hero.”

Kratos blushes before he can help it, reaches up to run a hand over his face—exasperated, fond, embarrassed all in equal measure.

“Anna,” he says. “Anna, I’m not. I’m not god. You did not fuck god.”

“ _One_ of me fucked god!” Anna counters, laughing as she pushes against him. _She’s_ not blushing. (Kratos hates her a little for it.) (He doesn’t, actually.)

“No, no, no,” Kratos says, though he can’t keep the smile off his lips. 

“I fucked god!” Anna repeats, and she laughs.

“Anna please.”

( _He claims he regrets telling her, after that, but he doesn’t actually. Of course he doesn’t._ )


End file.
